Community
Would a Rotating Map Pool Be Good for Dota?
With the advent of Siltbreaker, now is the perfect time to talk about rotating maps in Dota.
When I explain Dota to non-esport friends, they usually ask if the layout of the map stays the same or if it changes each...
Operation Hydra: Was It Worth the Wait?
The first CS:GO operation, dubbed Operation Payback, launched in 2013, and since then, Valve have mostly stuck to a predictable formula for these optional pieces of paid DLC. We've got community-made weapon skins, and, in Operation Vanguard, Valve introduced campaigns --...
Communication Tools for Gamers: Discord, Slack, and Twitch
Over the past decade, we've seen the rise and fall of many new social media platforms and communication apps. I'm old enough to remember when Facebook came and I remember how quickly people jumped ship from MySpace. Skype replaced MSN Messenger...
Staffordshire University’s Esports Degree: Behind the Scenes
Last week, the Esports Edition team was delighted to hear about the Esports Bachelor's Degree that’s now being offered at Staffordshire University in the UK. The three-year academic program is the first of its kind, and is designed to...
The Best Hardware for Dota 2: Keyboards, Mice, and Monitors
Whether you're looking to raise your MMR or you play Dota for fun and you're in need of new gear, it's easy to find peripherals out there that promise to enhance your gaming performance. If you're not sure where to begin, we've...
PLAYERUNKNOWN’s BATTLEGROUNDS Review: Old Idea, Fresh Take
If you've watched any popular Twitch streamers over the past couple months, you’ve heard of PLAYERUNKNOWN BATTLEGROUNDS. (We'll be calling it PUBG from here on out, because we don't hate you.) Here's how the game works. You join a lobby with...
The TI7 Prize Pool: Too Big to Fail?
The past four International prize pools have smashed records without fail. While TI1 and TI2 boasted identical prize pools of $1,600,000--at the time, this was unfathomably huge--every TI prize pool that followed these events has been larger than the one...
Dota 2 History: The Longest Pro Game Ever
Cloud9 vs. ScaryFaceZombies currently holds the record as the longest game of professional Dota 2 ever played.
Of course EternalEnvy was involved in something this ridiculous.
The game clocks in at a whopping 200 minutes—that's three hours and twenty minutes for those of...
Gotta Go Fast: Racing in Path of Exile
It's not quite the same as Mario Kart, but Path of Exile's racing scene is bigger than you might think. It's a great game for speedrunning, and both the developers and the community have taken an active interest in the...
Valve Majors Are Killing Third Party Dota Tournaments
The unfortunate repercussions of Valve's Dota 2 Major system on the livelihood of third-party tournaments isn't a new topic. In fact, we wrote an article about it last year. But lots of things have changed since we commented on it in...
Blizzard Teases Lunar Colony Map and New Space Monkey Hero
Brace yourselves, Overwatch fans. Teasers on the PlayOverwatch blog, around the Lijiang Tower map, and from the mouth of Blizzard's very own Oracle of Delphi, the esteemed Jeff Kaplan himself, are telling us one thing, and possibly a second. We're going...
Opinion: “Weird” CS:GO Events Keep the Scene Healthy
It's been a while since we've seen something like the HTC 2v2 Invitational, although Beyond the Summit's foray into Counter-Strike shares a bit of the spotlight as far as unique CS:GO events are concerned. The 2v2 format used at HTC...
